Episode 12 | "You're a victim."

Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a child or an adult to manipulate, exploit and abuse them. People who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited, or trafficked. Grooming can take place online or in person. Anybody can be a groomer, regardless of age, gender, or race. While these tactics are often used against younger kids, teens and vulnerable adults are also at risk. Abusers will often start to touch a victim in ways that appear harmless, such as hugging, wrestling, and tickling, and later escalate to increasingly more sexual contact, such as massages or showering together. Some examples of grooming behaviours can be isolating the victim, providing special attention or gifts, emotional manipulation, normalising inappropriate behaviour, threats or blackmail. https://womenforchange.co.za/gbv-glossary/ [Accessed: 09/06/2024]